I published on my blog a strategy for making infinite gold in diablo 3.

I would like to share this strategy with you for two reasons:

1. It's too easy to do and needs to be fixed.
2. It will greatly reduce the value of higher end crafting materials.

So what's the strategy? Simple: buy 100 subtle essence. Craft 50 belts. Salvage them all. Craft 25 belts... Etc down to the point where you can't craft any more.

What do you end up with? FAR more than you started with. You'll have more value from the 5% fallen tooth and 1% petrified bark than subtle essences you began with.

Why is this? Because you always get a subtle essence + a chance for a rarer crafting material. See how this is an issue and how you could go forever buying essences, crafting, salvaging, and selling the results?

This strategy will greatly reduce the value of higher rarer materials until this kind of method is no longer profitable. That's the natural balance of things.

How to fix:

Two things: increase cost to craft on items and do not give a subtle essence + chance for rarer material every time you salvage.

If this becomes too much of an issues they can easily hot fix it to lower the % chance to get the high quality item. Just like they can adjust sale prices if it looks like it might be an exploit.

This trick make work in the beginning I doubt it will be a viable long term $$$ generator.

As has be stated numerous times before it is in Blizzard/Activision best interest to make sure the economy stays stable and health. I strongly believe that Blizzard will actively monitor the Auction Houses to keep inflation in check. Just like they will be checking for duplicates items an other hack/bugs/exploits that could upset the economy. Checking the RMAH changes in P11 there is now a 1 day cool down on sales. I believe it is there to allow some sort of monitoring.

Remember we are playing in Blizzard's sandbox and they can easily change the rules of the game. In the end the "House" always wins.

So, yes, there are potential breakpoints of profit as one can see, but this arbitrage like many others have a good potential to even out. One will just have to wait and see what the price structures are to really know if there is any profit in it.

As pointed out in Markco's blog, there is also a cost for crafting the items. The cheapest item costs 40 gold to craft, so you will need 2000 gold to craft 50 items from 100 SE.

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Excellent point, so with the above setup 99 items get created, so that would cost 3960 gold. So, instead of the above formula, one would just need to be greater than the cost of buying the 3960 gold, which if it's say $1 per 1000 gold, we just need to have the end result be greater than $3.96, this doesn't change much:

and the 100 se make 50 belts, not 100, and the expected # of ft is 2.5 not 5.

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100 SE results in 50 belts, but those 50 belts result in 50SE and 2.5FT and 0.5PB but those 50SE result in 25 belts which result in 25SE and 1.25FT and 0.25PB and so on and so on, the results eventually add up if you break it all the way down. Fairly sure my numbers are correct when considering all the rounds of making additional belts.

I don't wanna be mean or anything but infinite gold as the title of your manipulation is really misplaced and seems like exageration to get some views.

Crafting cost gold, and most importantly cost time. You could farm normal and it would be infinite gold by your definition, you take 0 risk, and only lose some time. We have no idea yet how much the crafting material will be worth at the point where players will actually need them for something. This "technique" just use common magic material to get rare (and legendary) material, there is nothing new in that, WoW has similar features in some crafting skills. The value of legendary and rare material will be based on the demand from crafter that consume them, and the offer will be provided from farmer that drop them or "salvager" that gets lucky (well after 1000 salvage luck has less to do with anything).

Will this be a way to get material/sell material to get gold/â‚¬, yes it will.
Will it be faster than farming inferno with some MF gear and selling good affixes rolled loot, salvage any unwanted items to sell materials in AH, nobody can tell.

If you could refrain from using catchy term like "infinite", you could just say something like: way to get highely valued material and cashing out on them through craft/salvage with little effort.

Edit: At some point if with 100 blue material you can get 10 yellow material, blue material price will balance itself to 1/9th to 1/11th of the price of a yellow material if the demand is not overwhelming in rare material, be cause people will buy blue material instead of yellow when they actually need yellow one and just craft/salvage until they have what they need so the demand on blue will become higher -> price on blue will increase just accordingly to the price on yellow. you won't be able to get benefit from this at anytime anyday.

The reality is that this would take a fair amount of time, so unless you are going to write a script that is going to do all of the crafting, selling, etc for you (Don't do that, I'm not suggesting it) then you could likely gain wealth a lot faster just by killing baddies.

and the 100 se make 50 belts, not 100, and the expected # of ft is 2.5 not 5.

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This.

The chance of FT is 5%, not 10%.

As someone else also mentioned, the cost is 2000g for 50 of that belt. Without knowing what the value for FT's will be (we can predict it to cost very closely to what it's probability of getting it naturally is, aka the same way you would by doing these 50 crafts) I think you would get a net loss doing this, unless you get very lucky and get a few Petrified Barks and extra FT's. Good gambling system IMO

My valuation:
Judging by my meager valuation of a subtle essence (roughly how much gold you pick up for every blue you find on average, and how desirable it is), I'd value a subtle essence at no more than 150-200g at release, and much lower after release.

Fallen tooth and petrified Bark are easy to value in this example - they are valued at exactly the % chance to get one from salvaging blues (and this is the vast majority source of these items at low-level). This concept alone makes this idea a net loss, so let me explain it:
If everyone who salvages a blue has the same chance of getting a FT and a PB (which is the case), than simply sitting there crafting masses of blue items for FT's and PB's yields 0 profit. Because if you do get one, it is valued at exactly the same rate as the probability of getting it in the marketplace. You aren't doing anything different to anyone else, you are just increasing your rate of salvaging. When you factor in the 50% loss in subtle essences, and the gold cost, you are basically out a fair bit of gold per craft.

Also need to take in to account loss of farming time for doing the crafts, which will take long since the net gain (which there isn't any, but let's pretend there is) would be tiny. So you'd basically need to spend all day doing this.

Though it is definitely an interesting concept. If the price of FT ever goes far above its fair value, this would be an idea certainly worth exploring.

What do you people plan to farm **** in a1 normal through out your entire play after release(or getting over 9000 bobby bucks in a stress test beta)? What does it even matter what can be made out of that.....well be done with normal in two hours - why not debate about strategies on how to make an extra belt for 2 days on here.Think about something like this on hell/inferno where a craft is far more expensive and where you want to use those essences in crafting rare items not going round about and obtaining 1 SE profit on... normal. And this threads name is beyond me ... feels like in those rage comics with putting a flower pot in a plastic bag and duct taping the bag around your neck for INFINITE OXYGEN and breathing under water.

What do you people plan to farm **** in a1 normal through out your entire play after release(or getting over 9000 bobby bucks in a stress test beta)? What does it even matter what can be made out of that.....well be done with normal in two hours - why not debate about strategies on how to make an extra belt for 2 days on here.Think about something like this on hell/inferno where a craft is far more expensive and where you want to use those essences in crafting rare items not going round about and obtaining 1 SE profit on... normal. And this threads name is beyond me ... feels like in those rage comics with putting a flower pot in a plastic bag and duct taping the bag around your neck for INFINITE OXYGEN and breathing under water.

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Hyperbole aside, I expect it take more than 2 hours to get through just Act 1 in normal. I plan to do mostly full clears, and IIRC that took 2-3 hours just for the Beta.

I believe that there's a chance that tips and tricks like this have an opportunity to make money for a short period of time in the early goings of the game while the economy is balancing itself. It's possible that before we reach equilibrium in the market the price of FT on the AH are greater than they should be due to low supply (even that isn't very likely), and a few might be able to capitalize on this, but it won't take long for the market to balance back out, and leave no benefit.

Here is a simple C# app I whipped up (with a diablo.incgamers.com look and feel )
It's simple, no bells/whistles.
Designed to test different cases of prices for various scenarios and see if it is worth trying to craft something just to blow it up and resell mats.

So, a normal magic item that I can purchase from a vendor is 220g.
Results in 1 magic item.
Gold sells for 1.75 per 1,000.
SE for 1.00
FT for 1.00
PB for 1.00

So, the $ cost of the 220g vendor blue is $0.3850, if I salvage it I will *on average* get $1.06 worth of material.
Selling on the AH, I lose 15% or $0.1590, so I can expect that *on average* I will make $0.5160 per blue item I blow up with this cost structure (220g 0SE 0FT 0PB) if it sells on the AH right now.

We can see then how this changes with different vendor prices or crafting costs (200g 2SE 0FT 0PB for example) and see if we can expect any type of positive return on the venture.

At lower item level this may not be worth it, but at a higher item level when alot of the best crafted gear will be made this may work. This stragedy reminds me a lot of a saronite shuffle with disenchanting from world of warcraft. Think of it as a supply chain.

blue items->salvage to get high tier craftign matts->craft blues out of left over low level craftign matts---> then you could either sell the higher level craftign matts or use them to make rare or unque gear to sell. Its turning one type of item into a more valuable item/or more valueable craftign material. At level 60 you will be able to craft soem set and unque items.....i think the inferno level difficulty crafting matts will probably hold thier value for a relatively good amount of time. with this supply chain you can either supply crafters higher tier matts or supply yourself with them. Becuase items have random stats, I don't know if it will be better to be the crafter that supplies yourself or the supplier that supplies other crafters(might make the lengendary and it roll all five attributes as gold pick up radus, youd be able to pick up godl from 3 screen over but you know.)

this whole supply chain might not even exist if vendors sell blue and rare items, in which case your best bet is to find a place in inferno you can regularly and quickly find a rare spawn, with a fair amount of mobs to kill along the way (those crypts in act 1, for example) and stack some gf into your gear. buy all the blues and yellow you see from vendors and either sell them or salvage them in casr it looks more like.

Farm blue items/gold->check vendors buy all blue and rare items->salvage->repeat process till you have the matts to make a unque item or sell the higher tier matts to crafter on the ah. Personally, i think vendors selling blue and rare items makes +gold find the best wealth building stat in the game. you dont need to have magic find becuase you have plenty of gold to just keep entering new games, and checking to see if vendors have blue or rare gear to buy and then salvage. i think farming a place like farmign a place liek the crypts would suit this very well.

with stated gold find Enter new game in inferno mode->check the vendors-->hit the crypts to kill a rare mob->start new game and repeat till infinity.

without buying the mats i am still at a crossroad, do i sell the 100EE or craft and break for potentially greater gain?
(Imo, just sell the damn mats and sell your excess gold, then get back in the game.)

IF

Cost to craft(44550g) + Market value of 100EE < Market value of 1EE + 5IT + 1FB Again it "might" be worth it
(since the AH tax would be on both sides of the equation ill leave it out)

Honestly i feel the greatest income will be from those with real gaming skills. This is not like WoW and you can not treat the AH as such, buying and selling items is not going to work. Blizz will force players to play the game and get out there, if 1 day ban on items after sell isent enough to do that then im sure we will see 1week ban on items and so on. Wanna Buy and sell and not play the game, im sure EVE would love to have you.

I love how you put together the chart and use numbers with an accuracy of no less than four decimal places, but you totally miss that you don't actually get to keep the essences, because, you know... you used them to craft the belts.

I love how you put together the chart and use numbers with an accuracy of no less than four decimal places, but you totally miss that you don't actually get to keep the essences, because, you know... you used them to craft the belts.

*pats shoulder* we've all been there.

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I think there are a few other issues with my post, but it was all off the top of my head. The little tool doesn't have these issues at least, because I approached the problem from a different angle, a more obvious angle than illustrated in my post above. But yeah, we've all been there with egg on our face, just part of not being perfect